This invention is in the field of atomic force microscope cantilevers. This invention relates generally to an atomic force microscope cantilever having an integrated heater-thermometer and conductive tip, useful for measuring or actuating temperature-dependant electrical potential with nanometer scale resolution.
Microcantilever devices having integrated resistive heaters have found use in the fields of microscopy and information storage. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,762,402 and 7,038,996 describe microcantilevers having resistively heated tips used for patterning substrates for storage of binary information. Resistive heaters also find use in inducing mechanical oscillation for tapping mode atomic force microscopy measurements, as disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US2006/0238206.
In contrast, the microcantilever devices described herein, however, comprise heater-thermometers for controlling or measuring the temperature of a surface. The microcantilever devices described herein also comprise a conductive tip electrically isolated from the resistive heater which allows for temperature dependent Kelvin probe microscopy measurements as well as other uses.